Black Roses (28 page)

She was also engaged in what Paul Croker had called “getting in character”. There was always the chance that Magda might regret her indiscretions and resolve to place a distance between them, so it was essential to preserve the breezy informality that she had created, if she was to gain any useful information. To be the young actress, thrilled to find herself at close quarters with the Nazi High Command, but so far out of politics that she was easy to talk to. She ran though her character in her head, the way she had in the past before going on stage. She straightened her shoulders, tidied her hair and tilted her hat so it sat at a slight angle. She caught a glimpse of herself in the coffee house window and tipped her head coyly. Up by the counter a man winked at her and she gave a broad smile. It was working all right.

It was hard to preserve the breezy informality, however, when the maid showed Clara into the dressing room. Magda’s face was like thunder.

‘Late? You need discipline Fräulein! I am never late. Routine is vital. No matter what time I go to bed, I always follow the same routine. In the morning, forty-two strokes of the hairbrush, two minutes exactly on the teeth. I always change for lunch and dinner and never go out without fixing my make-up. It’s half the battle. That’s what they taught me at the convent school in Brussels and it has stayed with me for life.’

‘I didn’t know you were in a convent,’ said Clara, perching casually on a chair. ‘Did you like it?’

‘It was a regime,’ she said coolly, spritzing her perfume. ‘Like any regime it had good and bad points. The secret is to learn to live with it.’

With a shaking hand she reached for her pillbox and extracted a small blue pill. She was always taking pills, but then, Clara had noticed, pill-taking was a great hobby among women in Berlin. Helga too had her own little box of some non-specific medication, which she said was herbal and calmed her nerves. It was all of a piece, Clara thought, with the astrology and the superstition and the fortune-telling. All ways of alleviating a sickness no doctor could define.

Magda ran a lipstick round her mouth and flicked a final nimbus of powder on her immaculate face, perfecting the mask Clara had seen so often in newspapers and magazines.

‘These photographs are such an ordeal,’ Magda sighed. ‘Still, it’s important to appear as beautiful as I can. You may think this is foolish but I see it as my duty to Germany.’

‘I don’t think it’s foolish, but I can’t see why it’s your duty.’

‘Why do you think?’ She directed a reproving look through the mirror. ‘It’s wonderful of the Führer to create this opportunity for me to serve. After all, we all want to help in the great endeavour of transforming Germany.’

‘By looking beautiful?’

‘Do you think that sounds frivolous? In fact, it’s something I learnt from abroad. It wasn’t until I went to America and saw what hostesses those women are, that I decided how I should live. They were so well-dressed and beautifully groomed, I realized then just how influential a hostess can be.’

‘I never knew you’d been to America.’ Clara gave a girlish sigh. ‘I’d love to visit.’

‘It’s an amazing place.’ Magda gave a little laugh, fixing a pair of pearl studs in her ears. ‘I had such a time there. It was before I met Joseph, of course. President Hoover’s nephew wanted to marry me. I went to Fifth Avenue! And Broadway! But in the end it bored me. I wanted to come home.’

She braced her shoulders and gave herself a little shake. ‘Now, if you wait here, I’ll have my photograph taken, while you change. Then it will be your turn. The outfits have been delivered in your size and I’ve chosen two contrasting styles to begin with. One for the rural woman, another for the girl-about-town type. Shoes too. They’re over there.’

Magda disappeared and Clara picked up the clothes that had been made for her. They weren’t quite as bad as the preliminary sketches had suggested, but not far off it. The first had the feel of a folk costume. It was made of heavy green woollen fabric, with a close-fitting top, bell shaped skirt and a sweetheart neckline. There was embroidery round the hems and cuffs. Presumably it was to be worn with Gretchen braids and no make-up. The girl-about-town costume could not be more different. It had a military look to it, made of brown worsted, with padded shoulders and a sleek pencil skirt. It was marginally less hideous than the first, so Clara took off the skirt and blouse she had arrived in, stripped to her slip and stockings and pulled it on.

She stood in front of the mirror and sighed. There was something about these outfits that drained all femininity and defied any kind of flirtatiousness. If she had wanted to play second tuba in a marching band, then the clumpy, low heels and military shoulders looked just right. But if she wanted to turn heads as a sophisticated girl about town, forget it.

It occurred to her that while she was on her own she should look around. Swiftly she ran through the cupboards in Magda’s dressing room. The contents could not be further from those designed for the Reich Fashion Bureau. The wardrobe was fitted with special compartments for her shoes, dozens of them in satin and velvet, some bearing the label ‘Hand Made in Florence by Ferragamo’. There were shelves of linen, and fur coats in a line. On one shelf stood her alligator handbag, and a clutch bag in black crocodile with a diamanté clasp. Above were evening gowns in diaphanous chiffon with low-cut bodices and beaded straps, some backless and others with short capes floating from the shoulders. Below were nightdresses in ivory crêpe de Chine, and a lace bedjacket. As she rummaged, Clara kept her eye on the door in the mirror. She even ran her hand beneath the frothy silk slips and underwear folded with precision in the drawers, but there was nothing here that could be of any interest at all.

After ten minutes she ventured down the corridor past the bathroom, a magisterial affair with black marble bath and gold taps, then downstairs and along to the drawing room. Through the crack in the door she could see Magda being photographed. The little man’s nerves were in shreds, causing him to make numerous mistakes. First he dropped the light, then he clipped the tripod with his foot, requiring him to reposition the camera at length. Then he bustled across the room to reposition Magda physically, a proposition that he almost dared until he saw the expression on her face and backed swiftly away. It was too painful to watch. Clara wandered back down the corridor, passing the door to Goebbels’ study which had been left open, and on impulse she slipped inside.

The study was obsessively tidy. Three sides of the room were devoted to bookshelves, which extended floor to ceiling. A pair of leather armchairs stood before a tall window, which looked out onto the gardens at the back of the house. From a hook on the wall, she noticed, a suit hung and beneath it a pair of patent leather shoes, one of them with a built-up platform to accommodate the crippled foot, giving the unnerving impression that Goebbels was present in ghostly form. Positioned precisely on the desk was a row of sharpened pencils, and beside them a cut-glass ashtray, a typewriter and a framed photograph of Magda and the baby. Everything was immaculate and nothing out of place. It spoke of someone to whom control was all important. Not even a pencil would be allowed to step out of line.

Clara made her way over and pulled out the drawers. In the top one was a nail file, a hairbrush, a jar of pomade and a small atomizer of Scherk’s Tarr cologne. In the second was a manila file of papers. They were subdivided into smaller files. Leafing through them she found one headed ‘Employees of Ufa’. There followed a list of names. Quickly, and efficiently, she ran through them until she came to ‘V’, but hers was not there. She replaced the file and pulled out the drawer below. It contained a thick, leather-jacketed notebook, a diary by the look of it. The handwriting was small and densely packed. The first entries had been made in January that year and from what she could see Goebbels completed it several times a week. She looked at the entry datelined 1 April.

There were several more entries, pondering administrative changes in his office and his anxiety over the dated décor of the Palais Prinz Friedrich Leopold, which had been allocated to the new Propaganda Ministry. The most recent entry had a large X beside it. What did the X signify, Clara wondered. It couldn’t be, surely it wasn’t, the most obvious code of all, the one teenage girls put in their diaries, the mark that signified a secret liaison?

‘You should be more careful, Fräulein.’

She jumped, and the acid taste of alarm sprang into her mouth. Heart racing, she found herself looking directly into the eyes of Klaus Müller. How was he able to approach so soundlessly? She hadn’t heard a thing. It must be the thickness of the carpet. He was frowning, the fleshy mouth compressed into a harsh line.

‘The Herr Doktor might want to know that there’s a curious young English lady creeping around his house.’ He closed the door behind them and came over. ‘Exactly what do you think you are doing?’

She had never heard his voice without its jovial edge. At the sound of it her hands had dropped and the book fell back to its place in the drawer.

‘The Frau Doktor asked me to wait while she was photographed.’

‘In her husband’s study?’

‘Oh!’ she laughed and placed her hand to her hammering chest. ‘Is that what it is! I wondered why you were so angry. I thought it was the library!’ She gestured to the shelves. ‘All these books.’

She leant her body against the draw that held the diary, pushing it shut.

‘It’s the private office of the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and anyone snooping in here gets to explain themselves to the political police.’

‘But,’ she looked around the desk and picked up the silver-framed photograph, ‘I was just admiring the picture of the Frau Doktor. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? And the baby is so adorable.’

Flustered, she talked on, protesting too much. ‘Frau Goebbels said I should make myself at home. How should I have known this was his study? I was just killing time because that man from the newspaper is taking so long with these wretched photographs. He must think we have all day. And she has a headache. I don’t like to think what kind of mood she’s going to be in when she comes out.’

He continued glaring at her for a moment, then broke into a laugh. ‘Oh, don’t look so worried. I can keep your secret. Come here.’

She came out from behind the desk and stood in front of him. She noticed that he was growing a moustache. He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked down.

‘Though I preferred you in what you were wearing before.’

He reached out a hand to her hip and she felt it travel across the ridge of her suspender belt. Her heart was racing but she tossed her head and struck a pose.

‘Frau Goebbels chose the design, actually.’

‘So this is the famous fashion enterprise, eh?’ His fingers passed the curve of her hip and strayed lightly towards her groin. ‘And I thought you hated uniforms.’

She forced herself to adopt a light, bantering tone. ‘By wearing a uniform, the German woman subjugates her individual desires to the communal destiny of the German race. Surely you heard your boss on the radio the other night?’

‘But of course. I would never miss it. Though I can think of more enjoyable ways to spend my evenings.’ He extended one arm to prevent her stepping backwards and reached his hand up to twirl a lock of hair at her brow.

‘On the subject of which, perhaps you’d like to come for a drive with me?’

‘Now?’

‘Not now. I have work to do with the Doktor. But tomorrow perhaps. We could drive out to the Grunewald. There’s a villa I want to look at. It’s just become available and I need a country place.’ His brown eyes were studying her meaningfully. ‘We could stop on the way.’

‘Perhaps some other time. I’m afraid I’ll be at Babelsberg.’

‘Well then.’ He pulled her more tightly towards him and she felt a surprising hardness against her belly. ‘It’s a long time to wait, but on Thursday night there’s a gala performance of
Madame Butterfly
at the Staatsoper. Perhaps you would like to accompany me?’

Clara braced herself. It was no good trying to avoid him. She could think up endless excuses but the fact was, she was supposed to be seeing him more. She freed herself from his grasp with a little wriggle and smiled.

‘I’d love to,’ she heard her own voice, brightly flirtatious. ‘I can think of no more enjoyable way to spend my evening.’

He adjusted his collar and checked his watch. ‘Excellent. I shall send my driver at six. And by the way, how is the film going?’

‘Very well, thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me.’ He turned to go and stopped at the door and winked. ‘Or not entirely.’

The next day, leaving work slightly early, Leo jumped on a tram, got off at the next stop, crossed a crowded street and took another up to Tiergarten. Slipping off the tram he changed to the S-Bahn and waited at the platform for the S5 to arrive. As it approached, he crossed swiftly to the opposite platform and grinned at the elderly lady who held the door for him just as the train was pulling out. Once he had settled down it was satisfying to see, above the top of his
Vossische Zeitung
, that a young man, slightly out of breath, was standing alone on the platform, watching distractedly as the train trundled westwards. When Leo reached Charlottenburg he left the train, paused momentarily at the S-Bahn entrance to light a cigarette and glanced behind him. There was no one there.

He had known he had a tail for some time. A skinny youth in a shabby overcoat could often be seen outside the café where he took his breakfast, pretending to interest himself in the morning news. It was to be expected. Everyone at the embassy here knew they would be followed sooner or later. There was a certain look, they called it
der deutsche Blick
– the German glance – which described the casual over-the-shoulder check everyone made now before talking to a friend in the street. Leo had caught a glimpse of this particular tail earlier. Sallow and pinched, with a spidery moustache, he was the kind of lad who had been throwing bricks at Communists in Moabit just a few months ago. Now he had now found a new career opening up to him, one that offered exercise and plenty of travel. Leo might have shaken him off for now, but he’d be back again tomorrow, no doubt. It shouldn’t be a problem.